I can't remember but I thoght Drudge linked an article yesterday about some Dem congressman saying not to rule out a possible Gore/Obasam or Gore/Clinton compromise ticket in August.

Not just yesterday. For about the past month bringing Gore out of the wings has been floated around; mostly by the pundits in wuestions to the neutral Democratic analyststs and strategists. The funny thing, or strange thing is that Gore has been mum throughout this whole process. Another one whos has remained pretty silent is former president Jimmy Carter.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, like the Domino beleivers, I would say that Gore has it tied up. Since he is rightfully "entitled" to his lost presidency, he cut a deal months ago with the Superdelegates and the unpledged delegates in conjunction with the DNC, the DLC, the CFR, the Tri-Laterals...

I agree with the comments over at HuffPost -- the person asking this question of Chelsea should be ashamed. Children should not be asked about parents' infidelities nor the effects of those infidelities. Tacky!

The question should be asked of Hillary! or -- even better -- of Bill.

This is such concern trolling. We heard almost the same type of numbers and sentiment right before McCain received the nomination. There will be a few upset and bitter supporters who won't support the other candidate no matter what, but that number will shrink considerably once their is a candidate to coalesce around and Republicans say something untoward to him/her. That NYTimes lobbying article was about all McCain needed to get back most Romney/Huck voters, and a nasty ad by the RNC or Fox News will do pretty much the same for the Dem nominee.

If you believe that Obama is an america-hating racist, or some kind of secret muslim or whatever, most people think you're a nut. This stuff appeals only to a special kind of nut, and it won't carry an election.

I've seen you mention your sniper skills a couple of times in various comments sections, Fen. I think your political predictions are probably just as accurate, but only among a very select population (i.e., the kind of people who tell people online about their elite sniper skills.)

If you believe that Obama is an america-hating racist...most people think you're a nut

I believe that Obama attends a america-hating racist church and listens to america-hating racist sermons and has done so for 20 years and considers the preacher as his 'spiritual mentor'.

Now if I'm a nut for beliving that his preacher who refers to my country as the US of KKKA is a racist and that God damning America is america hating, well then I'll identify as an almond because they're good for the prostate.

So the Kool Kidz are saying Hillary is Tonya Harding. I'll take that - presumably by default that makes Obama Nancy Kerrigan? I think it's hilarious the Kool Kidz are shocked, SHOCKED I tell you Hillary talked to Scaife, that mean man that spread misleading things on the Clintons [who currently is not spreading rumors] but if you take a look at any liberal blog the conspiracy theories are rampant that would make any wingnut proud.

"Rasmussen was also the nation's most accurate polling firm during the 2004 Presidential election and the only one to project both Bush and Kerry's vote total within half a percentage point of the actual outcome.

During both Election 2004 and Election 2006, Rasmussen was the top-ranked public opinion research site on the web. We had twice as many visitors as our nearest competitor and nearly as many as all competitors combined."

If I was forced to follow only one poll, it would be Rasmussen. You should at least at it to your list and weigh it against your favorites.

Gore as deus ex machina would be great! But only if they roll out a real wooden crane, like in the good old days, with a stage hand cranking away slowly lowering Himself onto the stage in an ecclesiastic pose to a soft landing whereupon he delivers His divine solution to the intractably complex mess the humans got themselves into.

Then grabs his golden award, hops into the largest jet ever seen and departs in a puff to a white palace at the top of a mountain.

Fen brings out the worst in me. Apologies for the blanket name calling.

I think most people are taking from this Wright thing what they bring into it. If you dislike Obama already, it's easy (and seems valid) to convince yourself:

(1) that Wright is simply a "racist". A racist is a racist is a racist, and that ends the story. There are various degrees of this contextual blindness; Fen is about as obtuse as one can be on this point. Trinity Lutheran = KKK = Hamas = Nazis.

from there,

(2) The reason people went to that church was because they liked it. So someone heavily involved in that church must really hate America, and be racist.

(3) Clearly Barack Obama went to that church.

from there, we just apply a little Modus Ponens, and QED: Barack Obama is a racist who hates America.

I think that is a pretty strong argument, and if you are already inclined to dislike Obama, you swallow it. The problem is that it leaves you with a manifestly false picture: You end up believing that Barack Obama is racist bigot who hates America.

That doesn't square with observable reality, so then you need to start filling in backstory, and I think Fen is a good example of just how overboard you go with trying to shoehorn everything else to fit with a rock-solid notion that Barack Obama is a racist bigot.

Roost, since I get on your nerves, I'll try to be more gentle with you.

Fen is about as obtuse as one can be on this point. Trinity Lutheran = KKK = Hamas = Nazis.

No, I never said that. I asked you to please explain how Trinity's hatred of America and hatred of Jews is any different from that spewed by Islamic madrassas. You refuse to answer...

(3) Clearly Barack Obama went to that church....and QED: Barack Obama is a racist who hates America.

Its not just that Obama "went to that church". There is no record of him contesting any of this hated, either agressively or passively [by boycotting it]. At best, he is an enabler of racism and anti-americanism.

At the time I first saw the Wright "Manifesto" videos, I liked Obama a lot, as did my wife. (Liking doesn't imply voting for). After seeing what sort of church he chooses to attend, our Jewish-American and Catholic-American selves were appalled to the extent that we now like him just a tad more than Hillary, but like absolute zero, it is impossible to get lower than her on my scale. While maybe not anti-American or anti-Jewish himself, thinking those sentiments are OK in a person is pretty despicable.

As for Gore, he is not dishonest, just insane. (Ask President Klaus of the Czech Republic)

I think that is a pretty strong argument, and if you are already inclined to dislike Obama, you swallow it. The problem is that it leaves you with a manifestly false picture: You end up believing that Barack Obama is racist bigot who hates America.

So is it safe to assume you would not think me a racist if I told you I attended weekly KKK or Ayran nation meetings only because I liked the company and enjoyed the vibrant conversations but didn't really believe all that nonsense?

I'm sorry but I simply have a difficult time thinking you would cut any white politician the same slack if he/she attended a church that spouted the same kind of sermons and just substituted 'blacks' for whites.

The observable reality meaning what? The observable reality about politicians is nothing is what it appears to be. The observable reality about Larry Craig was that he was a family values type heterosexual conservative right up to the point we found out he liked getting blow jobs from men in airport bathrooms. The observable reality was that Bill and Hillary were happily married or that Eliot Spitzer was a righteous crime fighter.

But you know what, I'll give Obama the benefit of the doubt that he isn't racist. I'll buy your theory he had to 'act black' to get his political cred on the SS of Chicago. All that tells me then is that he isn't the fresh start he claims to be but just more of the same politician who will compromise a principle just to get a vote.

Since neither H! nor O! has the slightest intention of dropping out, the only interesting aspect of a poll like this is whether the 22% on each side correlates with the group of H!/O! supporters who say that they won't support the Dem nominee if their candidate doesn't win the nomination.

Richard Dolan said... Since neither H! nor O! has the slightest intention of dropping out, the only interesting aspect of a poll like this is whether the 22% on each side correlates with the group of H!/O! supporters who say that they won't support the Dem nominee if their candidate doesn't win the nomination.

I'm sorry but I simply have a difficult time thinking you would cut any white politician the same slack if he/she attended a church that spouted the same kind of sermons and just substituted 'blacks' for whites.

Well Hoosier, thats well worth an experiment. So here's what I propose. Go find a sermon by Wright, and in any place where he is screaming about hating white people, and doing violence to white people, you go ahead and swap colors. Then I'll judge.

Reportedly, there are 20 years worth of racist rantings for you to pick from, so it shouldn't take long. Try to get that one that Fen told us about, where he talks about the Jews developing race-selective bombs.

Morty wrote: "Oh, please. Anyone who thinks Obama should drop out is a Republican or an angry Hillary supporter who wants to even up the polling results."

The Republicans who want him to drop out are of no consequence. Angry Hillary supporters are another matter entirely!

I do not worry about Senator Obama being a racist, but it is crystal clear that some of his advisors are. That is why he cannot win the general election.

Senator Clinton's high negatives make it impossible for her to win the general election. All this makes me sad because the Republicans are going to think that they can win without us Conservatives, and they will become more Democratic lite.

Go find a sermon by Wright, and in any place where he is screaming about hating white people, and doing violence to white people, you go ahead and swap colors. Then I'll judge.

Evidently its a moot issue because you clearly don't see a problem with what Wright said and I do. I don't live in the US of KKKA. If Japan hadn't bombed Pearl Harbor we wouldn't have bombed Hiroshima. If he wants God to damn America, then perhaps he better leave before the rapture begins. I don't think the CIA invented AIDs to kill black people. If that isn't hate, well...

Here's a sidenote from my perspective of this whole thing. I worked at US Steel Gary works for five years in my early 20s and honestly, I heard this same kind of racist claptrap from a few mill workers there and it was right out of the Farrakhan playbook right down to the AIDs myth plus the one where the government puts chemicals in inner city water to sterilize black women. Yep, heard a lot of crazy shit so honestly what Wright spouts off doesn't shock me. What shocked me is that a presidential candidate who is running on hope, change and unity attended such a church for 20 years.

Try to get that one that Fen told us about, where he talks about the Jews developing race-selective bombs.

I haven't heard that one but the one about 'Italians looking down thier garlic noses' was priceless. I mean that's better than calling them wops.

Wright this and Wright that! Obama should leave Wright and throw him under the bus. Clinton lies and states she would walk out of a sermon if she heard Wright make some of those statements.

Chicago Politics 101:Every person knows, is related to and/or has an effect on seven people.

If Wright has a congregation and following of a couple thousand people. That means at least fourteen thousand people. No candidate in Chicago- living here or passing through is going to alienate fourteen thousand Black voters. Ain't gonna happen.

There is little difference amongst Obama, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton. Obama did manage to get himself elected. The third possibility that pastafarian ponders may be that Obama, like Jackson and Sharpton, is merely an opportunist. He watches a line form, then jumps out in front, hoping to be recognized as a leader.

Obama had no problem playing the race card to assist in tossing his grandmother under the bus wheels. Despicable behavior, but more opportunistic than racist, I think.

There's moral, immoral, and amoral. Perhaps there's a term that expresses the lack of any racist or non-racist traits? Obama's emptiness becomes more and more obvious each week.

I don't understand the complaint here. Israel did supply arms to apartheid South Africa, and Israel did develop nuclear weapons, presumably to use against Arabs. The truth may hurt, but speaking the truth is not kooky.

http://countrystudies.us/south-africa/85.htm

One of the most hidden but critical of South Africa's strategic relationships during the apartheid era was that with Israel, including both the Labor and the Likud governments. Israel officially opposed the apartheid system, but it also opposed broad international sanctions against Pretoria. ...South Africa and Israel had collaborated on military training, weapons development, and weapons production for years before broad sanctions were imposed in the late 1980s. Military cooperation continued despite the arms embargo and other trade restrictions imposed by the United States and much of Western Europe. Israel and several other countries discreetly traded with, and purchased enriched uranium from, South Africa throughout the 1980s. Romania's former president Nicolae Ceausescu, for example, used Israel as the "middleman" for exports to South Africa. In a few cases, joint ventures between Israel and South Africa helped to reduce the impact of sanctions on South African businesses.... South Africa provided a market for some of Israel's military exports. Israel's arms trade with South Africa was estimated at between US$400 million and US$800 million annually (see Arms Trade and the Defense Industry, ch. 5). In 1986 Israel also imported approximately US$181 million in goods, mainly coal, from South Africa, and exported to South Africa nonmilitary products worth about US$58.8 million.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/index.html

By the late 1990s the U.S. Intelligence Community estimated that Israel possessed between 75-130 weapons, based on production estimates. The stockpile would certainly include warheads for mobile Jericho-1 and Jericho-2 missiles, as well as bombs for Israeli aircraft, and may include other tactical nuclear weapons of various types. Some published estimates even claimed that Israel might have as many as 400 nuclear weapons by the late 1990s. We believe these numbers are exaggerated, and that Israel's nuclear weapons inventory may include less than 100 nuclear weapons. Stockpiled plutonium could be used to build additional weapons if so decided.Estimates for Israel's nuclear weapons stockpile range from 70 to 400 warheads. The actual number is probably closer to the lower estimate. Additional weapons could probably be built from inventories of fissile materials.

The Dimona nuclear reactor is the source of plutonium for Israeli nuclear weapons. The number of nuclear weapons that could have been produced by Israel has generally been estimated on the basis of assumptions about the power level of this reactor, combined with estimates for the number of delivery vehicles (aircraft, missiles) assigned a nuclear mission....Some type of non-nuclear test, perhaps a zero yield or implosion test, occurred on 2 November 1966 [possibly at Al-Naqab in the Negev]. There is no evidence that Israel has ever carried out a nuclear test, although many observers speculated that a suspected nuclear explosion in the southern Indian Ocean in 1979 was a joint South African-Israeli test.

Cozying up to her (our) old nemesis Richard Mellon Scaife, echoing false and nonsensical right wing attacks on Obama over Israel, and going all Tonya Harding on Obama. I have defended this woman for years but will never do so again, no matter how vicious the right wing attacks.

Let's see. For the last 16 years, Republicans have been saying that Hillary has no political principles, that she will sell out anybody for political power, and that she launches vicious and unfair attacks on anyone who stands in her way. You "defended" her against these accusations for years... until she started doing those things to someone you liked. Then you suddenly realized they were true.

Well, yeah, maybe he doesn't subject them to their pastor's nuttier pet politics.

Now you're getting desperate.

The kids attend the church, Roost. They sit through the sermons. So, yes, they get exposed to the pastor's nuttier pet politics. I guess it is remotely possible that they don't get exposed to the nutty politics of the church itself, if those politics don't come up during the services -- but we know they're there for the sermons.

I will rephrase, concisely and with less nuance: AlphaLiberal is a Jew-hating twit for linking to Atrios, who is a Jew-hating twit for calling Israel a traitor to America and a terrorist nation (Atrios says Israel joined the "bullies," i.e. the terrorists)

McPeak is a Jew-hater for blaming American Jews for the problems in Palestine, which are caused exclusively by Palestinian radical Jew-hatred that is indoctrinated into their children.

Anyone who thinks Israel's retreat to the '67 borders would solve anything is a stupid twit. The Palestinians will not look on that as proof that Israel wants peace; they will see it as proof that Israel is LOSING. It will only encourage them.

It's easier to get American Jews and Israeli Jews to change than it is to change the Palestinians. This is the classic problem of looking for your keys under the street lamp because it's dark where you dropped them. The "reality-based community" has no basis in reality.

Wright is a Jew-hater for publishing anti-Semitic items in his church newsletter, including referring to Israel as a "state" (in quotation marks), giving a free page to HAMAS, and accusing Israel of collaborating with South Africa on a black/Arab-killing "race bomb"

Obama is a Jew-hater for going to that church and never challenging the Jew-hatred. He is a Jew-hater for associating with so many Jew-haters, including his advisers such as Samantha Power, whose sole dream in life is to see Israel invaded by a world government. That's what she's thinking about when Cass Sunstein is sweating and grunting on top of her.

Obama has a problem with Jews. And Jews are noticing it. And now he has a problem with the Jewish vote.

That's not true. I do have a problem with it. You were accusing me of applying a double standard, and I was pointing out that it isn't as bad as the klan or the neo-nazis.

I stand corrected. You did say you were bothered by it and I regret the comment.

But I do have a problem with it, and that link that Fen provided is enough to convince me that Wright is crazier than I've assumed.

Well in a way, that is where I think some people have issues. For a lot of people, the US of KKKA and AID's myth was over the top. For us, Fen's link was simply reinforcing what we already thought of the guy.

Still, there is more to a man than his crazy beliefs, and more to a church than its pastor, and more to a community than its church.

True, and so far what I have read about black liberation theology isn't exactly encouraging to me as a white man.

The Wright stuff provides a small amount of evidence for the case that Barack Obama is a racist who hates America. The words and actions of his life provide overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps but it also makes me have a lot of second thoughts about a man who has presidential aspirations and runs on a unity platform and then attends a church such as that. Words and actions mean little in the realm of politics. Again, Larry Craig and Elliot Spitzer are prime examples. Supposedly upstanding citizens with the rehtoric and voting record to match up to the point we find out one likes airport blowjobs from men and another committing the same crimes he was locking people up for. Maybe I'm just more cynical but its hard not to. Hell, I thought Bush was a conservative.

And as for Hillary walking out - she and Bill had Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as "spiritual advisors" during the impeachment problem and they are just about the same as Jeremiah Wright in their religion and politics. Did you see the Clintons walk out on Jesse and Al? Didn't think so. And when Al demanded that Algore and Hillary come to him if they wanted his support in 2000 and they trotted right up there soonest. Unbelievable. Don't the media and the campaigns think people remember things? Do they truly believe that all history started in 2001?

I don't see how you can say that Lott's comment was "innocuous". Strom Thurmond was the pro-segregation nominee of a party formed for the solitary purpose of defending segregation. Lott expressed regret that Thurmond didn't win. There's no innocuous way to interpret that.

Al Sharpton caused a near riot, the burning of a building, and the death of an innocent person because of his statements. Don not forget the Twana Brawley fraud. Yet, he is beloved. He is respected. That makes Trent Lott's statements innocuous by comparison. Should trent Lott have lost his position? He apologised didn't he? Or are only Democrats allowed to make stupid remarks, apologize, and move on?

Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Jesse Helms, David Duke are all in the same class of people.

Then of course, there is Robert Byrd, the ex-recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan. Guy makes Thurmond look like a far left Liberal.

Al Sharpton caused a near riot, the burning of a building, and the death of an innocent person because of his statements.

Yeah, yeah, and white people enslaved millions of blacks, so I guess that makes what Sharpton does ok. Or... wait a second... maybe a person's behavior is right or wrong on their own merits, and not excused by wrongs done by other people.

That makes Trent Lott's statements innocuous by comparison.

"Innocuous" is not a relative scale. If I say "I hate those big-nosed sheenies" I can't say "well in comparison to herding Jews into gas chambers what I did was innocuous".

Lott expressed admiration for one of the most disgusting events in postwar Presidential politics. He expressed pride that a man known primarily for his leadership of a pro-racism political movement was from his state. He expressed regret that the guy had lost, leading to "all these problems" (what's THAT refer to -- the Lewinsky scandal?).

Should trent Lott have lost his position?

He should have lost his position, been voted out of office, and been spit on by passerby in the streets.

Non-sequiteur. Praise for racism is wrong no matter how many arsonists, rioters, and murderers there are in the world. Al Sharpton's misdeeds are irrelevant to Lott's.

Your entire argument boils down to "there are lots of heinously racist black Democrats, so we should forgive Trent Lott for being a racist piece of dogshit". I have to disagree. Trent Lott's racism is unforgivable regardless of how many black racists the Democrats suck up to.

And that's just it. Call me crazy, but just because the Democrats are the party of anti-white racism doesn't make me want to vote for the party of anti-black racism. Purging white racists from the party is a good idea regardless of what the Democrats do, both for moral reasons and for reasons of long-term political viability. There are plenty of blacks in America who can't stand the likes of Sharpton. But it is hard to convince blacks to vote for Republicans when the Senate leadership is waxing nostalgic for a "don't let them make lynching illegal" campaign platform.

Rev: I have no problem with your interpretation of Lott's remarks--in the context of the history of the dixiecrats and election of 1948 you are, of course, correct. However, in the context of saying a stupid thing on the occasion of a nearly senile senator's 100th birthday to, perhaps, make the honoree feel good about himself, then those remarks could, I think, be assumed to be innocuous.

Do you honestly mean to suggest that Lott was simply struggling for something nice to say about an old man, and the best thing he could come up with was something which (a) happened over 50 years earlier and (b) is considered a shameful part of US history by the vast majority of Americans? Come on, now. That's like standing up to give a toast at your friend's 50th wedding anniversary and accidentally praising that time he cheated on his wife with a really good-looking woman. It isn't something a person who actually thinks cheating is wrong would DO.

I think Lott was trying to say something to make ole tangerinehead feel good, and it simply came out wrong. YMMV.

Thought experiment: at Byrd's retirement party, how likely do you think it is that someone will praise his years as a Klan recruiter?

I just don't find it credible that a person *accidentally* praises a guy for his years as an overt racist. The Dixiecrats weren't about federalism -- they were explicitly and overtly about keeping whites and blacks segregated from one another. Anyone who actually thinks that position was wrong wouldn't THINK to offer that up in praise of someone, just as no non-racist would think to offer Byrd's Klan years in praise of him. You only "accidentally" make that "mistake" if you really don't see what the problem was with what they did.

MCG, I think we're arguing in circles here. I think everyone agrees that Sharpton is scum and that he has said many things that were far worse than anything Lott (or Thurmond for that matter) ever said. But I just don't see what that's got to do with anything. That Democrats get away with bad behavior and Republicans don't doesn't make me think "we should let Republicans get away with more". I makes me think "we need to hold the Democrats' feet to the fire".

Look at the bright side. The Democrats' mollycoddling of anti-white racists is really going to bite them on the ass this year.

Supporters of our free enterprise system should support the right of Don Imus' employer to fire his ass for any reason, or no reason at all. The U.S. is not some socialist welfare paradise where employees have to be kept on the payroll for life, no matter how egregiously they fuck up. Similarly, under our free enterprise system, Don Imus is free to seek employment with anyone who wants a disk jockey who gratuitously insults hard-working, talented young women.

Rev: I have no problem with your interpretation of Lott's remarks--in the context of the history of the dixiecrats and election of 1948 you are, of course, correct. However, in the context of saying a stupid thing on the occasion of a nearly senile senator's 100th birthday to, perhaps, make the honoree feel good about himself, then those remarks could, I think, be assumed to be innocuous.

Revenent is being excessively judgmental about applying contemporary standards to every point of a man's life on what was "correct" or "incorrect" about life accomplishments done when wholly different values existed in society and his peers.And in laudable exaggeration or white lies to make an old man or woman feel good about the life they had.

My grandmother was brilliant, but also famously difficult. She had major accomplishments, but also had walked out on her family in the early 60s and done some other self-centered scummy things and was "wrong" in her politics about Saint Alger Hiss, among other things.When she was dying of cancer, there was no end to people trying to buck her up, gloss over the bad, lie like crazy about her cooking and poems being wonderful and her mid-life university teaching job outside tenure as amounting to academic brilliance the country noticed and her almost immediately out-of-print books as "famous".

And by Revenent's standards, MLK would best be held to contemporary standards about wife and whore beating being abominable, academic plagarism an intellectual's death sentence, flirting with Communism a sign of evil stupidity, open misuse of funds and tax-exempt status as "wanton law-breaking". And Jefferson a racist, Lincoln too!

And we have people that honestly and legitimately count their most significant life accomplishments happening while they were on the "wrong side" in politics, a cultural controversy, or a war. A friend's grandfather was in the German Luftwaffe with 16 kills on the Eastern Front, was a committed Nazi, though he backed off on that and became a Peronist, then a socialist - and a decorated pilot and commercial flight school owner later in a Peruvian dictatorship.

As he was dying back in Peru, all his family and friends returned and talked to this honorable man and listened to his great feats back in "the good old days." For his contributions to Peru and his charitable works, he was honored by the State.

So, is it your belief that Lott is, in fact, a racist, pining for days of yore?

He regrets "all these problems" we've had since the racists were defeated. In what sense is that not pining for the good old days of racism? There is no rational explanation for that praise that is consistent with actually thinking segregation was bad. The "he was just trying to say nice things" story is nonsensical.

Does Lott have much history of racism? (Or any?)

There's his famous interview with the white supremacist Southern Partisan, for starters.

If not, is it your position that his racism finally came to the fore?

He let the mask slip, as he had on occasion before. Byrd did something similar a few years back with his comment about how there are "white niggers too".

I'm genuinely curious, here, because I sort of think we went of the rails around the time we decided that the use of certain words proved that someone was a racist.

"Use of certain words"? I'm talking about the content of Lott's speech, not its word usage. Answer my question from before -- do you think anyone at Byrd's retirement will praise his Klan recruitment days? And if someone does, will you accept "oh, I was just trying to be nice" as an explanation? You don't "accidentally" praise a pack of people whose one and only defining characteristic is racism -- a group you *know* to be defined by their racism -- unless you think there's nothing wrong with racism.

Revenent is being excessively judgmental about applying contemporary standards to every point of a man's life on what was "correct" or "incorrect" about life accomplishments done when wholly different values existed in society and his peers.

I see Cedarford has put down his copy of "Mein Kampf" long enough to honor us with another posting.

"Contemporary standards", Cedarford? The election happened within living memory. I know people who voted in that election. The Dixiecrats split off from the Democrats because the *Dixiecrats* didn't like the contemporary standards of the time -- because neither the Democrats nor the Republicans were eager to support Southern racism any longer. The majority of Americans thought Thurmond's view were disgusting, even in 1948.

Answer my question from before -- do you think anyone at Byrd's retirement will praise his Klan recruitment days?

Not directly. Obliquely without thinking through the historical implications of what they're saying? Possibly. Didn't Boxer already do that? No, I guess she just called him "the love of my life".

And if someone does, will you accept "oh, I was just trying to be nice" as an explanation?

Maybe.

You don't "accidentally" praise a pack of people whose one and only defining characteristic is racism -- a group you *know* to be defined by their racism -- unless you think there's nothing wrong with racism.

Assuming that's what's foremost in your mind when you're speaking.

Let's say (hypothetically, of course) I've done something bad in my life, like drown a bagful of kittens. And let's say I'd repented, seen the error of my ways, etc. Let's say 50 years later someone eulogizing me says I was perfect. Never did anything wrong. A saint. The sort of effusive (and highly inaccurate) praise that people offer at such times.

It's possible that the person is thinking about my program of drowning kittens and is all for it. But it seems less likely then not wanting to lard the eulogy with exclusions for my sins.

Again, I don't have an opinion, really, on Lott. (Well, that's not true. I think he's pretty scuzzy. But I don't have an opinion on him being a racist.) For all I know, you've read his mind perfectly, and he was thinking of segregation the exact moment when he said "all these problems".

Let's say 50 years later someone eulogizing me says I was perfect. Never did anything wrong. A saint. The sort of effusive (and highly inaccurate) praise that people offer at such times.

That's not a valid parallel. The valid parallel would be if he said he was proud of that time you threw a bag of kittens in the river. Lott didn't overlook something bad that Thurmond had done while praising the man. He singled out the worst thing Thurmond did in his 60-year political career and used that as the basis of his praise.